U Mad? Study Says Internet Leads to Bad Spelling Among Children

This may come as no surprise to anyone who’s visited an online forum lately, but according to a study recently released by the English Spelling Society, online social sites have made incorrect spelling of words a widely accepted phenomenon. To an extent, that makes sense: If one is writing something quickly in a chat window and accidentally sends out the word “liek” instead of “like,” the general meaning is still conveyed, and the person with whom he or she is talking can quickly guess that such a typo occurred.

But the brazen younger generation wants more than mere understanding: They want change. According to the study, 66% of the 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed “believe that dictionaries should contain variant spellings.”The Independent:

…children who have been brought up with the internet do not question wrongly spelt words.

The study says: “The increasing use of variant spellings on the internet has been brought about by people typing at speed in chat rooms and on social networking sites where the general attitude is that there isn’t a need to correct typo’s or conform to spelling rules.”

Report author Lucy Jones, a former student at Manchester University, said: “We are now witnessing the effect these linguistic variations are having on children born into the computer age with such a high level of access in and out of schools. They do not question their existence.”